


our luck changed

by lilabut



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, Drabble, F/M, Sexual Content, set sometime post season 6a
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2016-01-10
Packaged: 2018-05-10 01:22:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5563318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilabut/pseuds/lilabut
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Everything is stripped away in this moment, every wall they built bared, all secrets wiped clean. Except one.</i>
</p><p>Carol confesses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. our luck changed

**Author's Note:**

> The title is taken from _Never Bloom Again_ by The Perishers, which is a wonderfully angsty song, so you should listen to that.

Carol has imagined how it would be.

 

 

During those days long gone, the harsh winter on the road. When her breath faded into mist. Some nights, he edged a little closer to where she lay awake. She thought about it then. To be even closer (his arms around her, the heat she felt radiating off him trickling beneath her skin). She imagined it heated.

 

Those calm days behind bars, when they were free. The settled routine of the prison, when he smiled at her and recanted every step of her dance. She considered it then, when he walked past her cell at night, when she sat next to him, thigh to thigh, shoulder to shoulder, in the guard tower (lips curling into a rare smile against hers, a brisk laugh swallowed by the press of hot skin). She imagined it tender.

 

 

 

When it does happen, it is desperate.

 

 

The damp, suffocating heat is one she has not felt since they left Georgia. It pools in beads of sweat in the small of her back, the hollows of her collarbone.

 

Her trousers - ironed neatly, smelling of roses - are bunched messily around her right ankle, her blouse pushed up just far enough to expose a shy sliver of skin. There is dirt on her fingers, black dust that cakes Daryl's shirt, no buttons undone, his worn jeans pushed down _just_ enough.

 

It burns bright and fast, and is over as quickly as it began. Daryl's grunt vibrates against the clammy curve of her neck, his hips pushing her so deeply into the mattress she feels like drowning. Calmly, she feathers her lips across his temple.

 

He mutters her name against her skin, a calloused hand finding its way between them, disappearing to where they are still connected, still a whole. But Carol's hand hastily follows his, fingers curling around his wrists and tugging gently.

 

The heat of him burns through her skin even as he rolls off of her, his half-clothed thigh pressing against her bare one.

 

Everything is stripped away in this moment, every wall they built bared, every excuse or reasoning in vain, all secrets wiped clean. Except one. It presses more angrily on her heart now than ever before; she feels like drowning all over again.

 

 

Unlocking her her heart, she finally gives it away.  _I killed Lizzie._

 

 

 

Breathing raggedly, she waits.


	2. if we could start again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title is, once again, taken from _Never Bloom Again_.

_I killed Lizzie._

 

 

She waits for him. To speak. To shout. To walk away. To send her away.

 

 _Why?_ he asks finally, his voice calm, his breathing still labored.

 

The questions lingers heavily between them, as do the two he does not ask.

 

 

 _How many walkers has she killed?_ Carol tries to put a number on it, sees flashes of rotten faces and torn flesh like a horrific slide show in her mind. But she does not know, not anymore. Desperately, she tries to remember the very first walker she killed, but the memory evades her like smoke. It is just there, she can smell it, taste it on her tongue, but she can not grasp it.

 

Her eyes close, her hands trembling against her partly exposed stomach.

 

 _How many people has she killed?_ Nameless faces in a crowd, screaming in agony. Ed. Ryan. Yellow flowers wilt in her hands as Lizzie's tears and blood soak into the ground. Karen and David, the stench of burning flesh making her gag, and she coughs into the silence. How many? She does not know. Not anymore.

 

_But why?_

 

What answer could possibly make right of what she did?

 

Laughter fills the humid air, and it takes her a minute to recognize it as Sophia’s. Whose fault had that been? Why did her little girl have to die?

 

Why did any of them?

 

A drop of blood on her finger, the thorn of a rose buried deeply in her skin. She tears them out of the soiled ground, but they are wrong, all wrong. In the sky, a rainbow spans, but black smoke obscures it until nothing remains, the fire burning, always burning. Why?

 

 

 

Warm fingers curl around hers, the world falling back into place (she is not sure if she wants it to anymore). _Why?_ Daryl repeats.

 

And so she unravels the secret, thread by thread.

 

He waits for her. Allows her to speak. He never shouts. He turns towards her instead of walking away.

 

She gives him his answer, let's him evaluate.

 

When he kisses the corner of her mouth, forcing her to look at him, she can see it in his eyes. She understands.

 

 

They get to start over. She gets to stay.


End file.
